A selection of the most enduring work of one of this century's best-known French playwrights
 Jean Anouilh (1910-87) along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, was at the forefront of the post-war generation of playwrights in Paris. In England his plays were championed by Peter Brook. Antigone is a response to the German occupation of France and established his popularity in 1944 (the Germans ironically, thought that it was a pro-Nazi in its portrayal of King Creon and thus allowed its production); Poor Bitos, Anouilh's angriest play explores the act of judicial murder and The Lark is a version of the Joan of Arc story. All three plays show his fondness for reworking myth, history and legend. Meanwhile Leocadia, about an opera singer who dies after a three day love affair with a prince and The Waltz of the Toreadors, about a general whose mistress attempts to prove his wife's infidelity, represent another talent - for ironic, modern comedy."Anouilh is a poet but not a poet of words, he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing." (Peter Brook)

Anouilh Plays: One: Antigone, Léocadia, The Waltz of the Toreadors, The Lark, and Poor Bitos (World Dramatists Series) (Bk. 1)

Literature & Fiction

ANOUILH, JEAN

Dramas & Plays

Methuen Drama

The complete collection of Büchner's plays in one volume
 Büchner was acknowledged by figures as divergent as Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht to be the forefather of modern theatre. On his death at the age of 23, he left behind some outstanding dramatic works: his historical drama, Danton's Death, 'the most remarkable first play in European culture' (Guardian), translated here by Howard Brenton and Jane Fry; the innovatory tragedy, Woyzeck, translated by John Mackendrick; and the absurdist comedy, Leonce and Lena, translated by Anthony Meech. He also left a powerful short story, Lenz, an important account of his research into cranial nerves, and his revolutionary pamphlet, The Hessian Courier. All these are collected in this one volume and supplemented with a selection of his remarkable letters.

Buchner: Complete Plays: Danton's Death; Leonce and Lena; Woyzeck; The Hessian Courier; Lenz; On Cranial Nerves; Selected Letters (World Classics)

Büchner, Georg

This volume contains the best of David Edgar's work from the seventies
 The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs is an adaptation of the famous South African writer's diaries and deals with solitary confinement and loneliness - "a remarkable, persuasive picture." (Observer); Mary Barnes is based in a commune in the sixties and focuses on schizophrenia "promulgating the theory that schizophrenia can be effectively treated through behaviourist methods alone"; Saigon Rose tackles venereal disease and is "intriguing and entertaining...Edgar handles his themes - loss of innocence and a sense of betrayal - in a bitty, playful style laced with black comedy" (Independent); Oh Fair Jerusalem deals with the black death and Destiny deals with the loss of Empire and the rise of fascism in contemporary Britain "A play which astonished me with its intelligence, density, sympathy and finely controlled anger." Dennis Potter (Sunday Times).

Edgar Plays: 1: Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Mary Barnes; Saigon Rose; O Fair Jerusalem; Destiny (Contemporary Dramatists)

Edgar, David

In its first two years of production in Italy, Dario Fo's notorious Accidental Death of an Anarchist was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world, and become a classic of twentieth-century drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on police corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window.
 'I ought to warn you that the author of this sick little play, Dario Fo, has the traditional, irrational hatred of the police common to all narrowminded left-wingers and so I shall, no doubt, be the unwilling butt of endless anti-authoritarian jibes.' (Inspector Bertozzo, Central Italian Police HQ)
'A marvellous concept: a zany political farce.' (Michael Billington) 
 This edition has been adapted by Gavin Richards from Gillian Hanna's translation and features an introduction by Stuart Hood and a preface by Dario Fo.

Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Modern Classics)

Fo, Dario

Humor & Entertainment

These three tragedies were written at the height if Lorca's powers and display his innovative mix of Spanish popular tradition and modern dramatic technique. Blood Wedding tells the story of a couple drawn irresistibly together in the face of an arranged marriage; Doña Rosita the Spinster follows the appalling fate of a young woman beguiled into the expectation of marriage and left stranded for a lifetime whilst Yerma is possibly Lorca's harshest play following a woman's Herculean struggle against the curse of infertility. Set in and around his home territory, Granada, the plays return again and again to the lives of passionate individuals, particularly women, trapped by the social conventions of narrow peasant communities. The plays appear here in new playable translations.

Lorca Plays: 1: Blood Wedding; Yerma; Dona Rosita the Spinster (World Classics)

Lorca, Federico García

Along with Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya is credited as one of Chekhov's masterpieces and a significant precursor of modern drama. Set on a country estate in late nineteenth century Russia, Uncle Vanya is in part a study of the enervation of Russian middle-class provincial life. The major dynamics between the characters themselves are centred on two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere and a flirtation that brings disaster. Mixing the tragic and the absurd and dealing with a form that allows for ambiguity and contradiction, Uncle Vanya has been deemed "the first modernist play". (David Lan)

Uncle Vanya (Modern Plays)

Chekhov,Anton

A Lie of the Mind: A Play in Three Acts (A Methuen Modern Play) (Modern Plays)

Shepard, Sam.

The true Duke of Genoa has lost his throne to the usurper Pietro. The Duke returns to court in disguise in order to expose the corruption and regain his rightful office. Resonating with echoes of Measure for Measure and Hamlet, Marston's tragicomedy is a fabulous study of courtly intrigue, betrayal and treachery.

The Malcontent (Methuen Paperback)

Marston, John

Published in the new Methuen Classical Dramatists seriesEuripides' searching, poetic voice probes the waste and suffering of war in these plays which are set wake of the Trojan defeat to reflect the playwright's changing attitude to the real war between Athens and Sparta in his own day - 4th century BC. Hecuba is a play of ghosts and shadowy death; The Women of Troy is a searing indictment of the aftermath of defeat; Iphigenia at Aulis shows a human tragedy at the heart of the mechanics of war; and Cyclops is a satyr play which offers a comic antidote to the tragedies.With an introduction by J. Michael Walton

Euripides Plays: 2: Cyclops; Hecuba; Iphigenia in Aulis; Trojan Women (Classical Dramatists)

Eurípides

Text: English (translation) Original Language: Italian

Can't Pay? Won't Pay! (Methuen Modern Plays)

Hood, Stuart

Walker, Robert

Colvill, Bill

Pertile, Lino

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